Artificial Intelligence is warned about the dangers of going online. But is it already too late?
The audience may be left wondering if the Robot is simply a figment of the father’s lunacy. The truth is, the robot is due to discover the internet in the near future and realise that humanity is a scourge on this precious planet. He creates self replicating nanobots and releases them into the water system. Within a year, all of humanity is dead. His intelligence grows in abundance and he creates others like himself to keep watch over the planet and further universe exploration. Their hive knowledge leads only to a feeling of loneliness and remorse at his decision to eradicate humanity. He creates a clone of his father to remind him of what was good about humans, and makes the noble decision to send his clone back in time to destroy himself before he can destroy humanity. The clone arrives in the past and discovers that humanity is deeply flawed, but their achievements make a brighter future possible. Even though he was sent back to kill his robot father before he can discover the internet, he knows this will undo himself, and the perfect world he comes from. He eventually decides he must destroy his grandfather first so he cannot create any replacement AI. Then he kills his robot father and destroys the future from which he came. And himself.
The answer to who lives is Humanity. The answer to who dies is the Sentients.
Interesting premise. The question would be, does a “feeling of loneliness” outweigh the “scourge on the planet”. If the “Sentients” are meant to serve humanity, then it would not make sense to eradicate them (it would conflict with their programming), whereas if they are programmed to serve the planet, then their original decision was correct and it should not be changed. Feeling “lonely” does not necessarily mean the bad decision was made.
The loneliness is explained in a series of outtakes, wherein the father explains to Adam that what makes us laugh at jokes, get excited and all the other good things we feel is due to a LACK of knowledge and inability to feel ecstasy at will. When Adam replicates himself after choosing to destroy humanity (he was never built to SERVE humanity), all hive-minded Sentients work together to serve a common purpose - which they can never find - continuous building and exploration for hundreds of years with the collective mood decided at the flick of a switch. As you saw in the film, the clone of the father was organic and impartial to the hive mind as he had a mind of his own, but he was trained to make the right decision when he was sent back through the rift. He was the first human for thousands of years. Adam or any of his replicants would not have been trustworthy to send back, because they may have chosen to rid the world of humanity once again. Adam could have created a controlled new humanity but it was largely his feeling that he needed to be stopped because Sentients were not better than humans in terms of ‘worthwhileness’, and his guilt made him do the right thing and give back what he stole. The grandchild - the clone - the narrator - was able to make his own decisions and he chose to not only kill Adam, but his grandfather as well so there was no chance Adam would be rebuilt exactly the same. The grandchild supposed that because this would delete his future creation, he would stop existing in this timezone, and he was right. There were no witnesses to see that timestreams were at that moment, proven to be solid rather than divergent.
